Kyoraku no Mai AKA Dance of the Capital (1942) - Hiromasa Nomura

Mieko Takamine is too beautiful... Standing she is a peony, sitting she is a peony, walking she is a lily. In The Lights of Asakusa, as in all of her films, there is always a close-up scene where the cameraman takes a picture of her face from a diagonal angle. It seems to be a filming technique that works only for Mieko Takamine. She looks good in both Japanese and Western clothes. The film is directed by Hiromasa Nomura, the master of entertaining melodrama, so it is no longer a period drama but a modern one! Honestly, it’s a period piece without the chanbara. The use of the words “Japan“ and “national unity“, words that are not used in period dramas, and Rintaro Katsu’s speech about the survival of the nation are directly referring to the Japanese Empire of 1942.